I admit it: I’m a bit of a Cinephile. Ok, I’m A LOT of a Cinephile. I try to see just about every movie that comes out at theatres in the theatre, and for every trip I make to the theatre with another person, I make about eight by myself. If my extroversion and social nature have a formidable adversary, it is films. And popcorn with about three gallons of “butter” on it (layered, obviously).
I’m not the only one. I think most psychologists would agree that “Netflixophelia” is a real thing to be reckoned with.
So with all these movie nerds lurching around desperate for their next fix, why do I feel like in order to know where and when I can watch something, I’m forced to either conduct my own searches on each individual channel / platform, get lucky enough to catch an advertisement during a campaign stretch, or be forced to read some bloated online column called, “What’s New On <InsertChannel> This <InsertMonth>”?
What I’d like is one simple application to handle my entertainment addiction, let me know when stuff is available, where I can get it and how much it might cost me. I’d also love preference-based recommendations that spans all channels, not just Netflix, who keeps telling me to watch something from their infinite catalog of C-movies because I once got desperate and streamed a John Cusack thriller.
By the looks of it, AlertFilm might be able to help.
Just launched in January of this year by three founders who might collectively be 14 years old, AlertFilm is an application with a simple premise: combine all the content from all the streaming platforms so users can quickly discover and access their preferred films, get the latest news about areas of interest and only require one app to always know when and where things come out.
One place for Cinema, Netflix, iTunes, Plex and soon, Amazon. When something is finally released on a streaming platform, or in theatres, I can get a notification. If I want to see whether or not something is available on the Canadian version of Netflix, or for download on iTunes, I can quickly check that in one place at the same time. There is even an integration with Rotten Tomatoes to show critic and audience reviews.
Rather than being contained to one single channel or platform, AlertFilm also curates a “Watch List” so that I can manage a backlog of “must see” content that again spans theatre releases and home streaming services. They also mention “torrents”, but I’m just gonna leave that one alone for now…
Ya, I have Flixster and I use the living shit out of it, mostly for the consolidation of showtimes at nearby theatres and reviews. But the ticket purchase process is not intuitive / I can’t really figure it out (nor does it allow me to use my movie points program), the experience is entirely passive (they don’t alert me of releases) and they only support cinema and Netflix in two separate locations within the app, with Netflix being located in the “DVD” section because I guess they’re trying to be hilarious (though I will admit I still buy Blu-ray discs every once in a while).
One thing AlertFilm will want to offer sooner rather than later is Android support and inclusion of on-demand television programming. As soon as they tackle that, I would think that screen time shouldn’t be a problem. Though they may also want to rework the name a bit…
Benjamin Mann
Ben is a Toronto-based writer and public speaker with more than a soft spot for 90s hip hop. He has spent over 10 years in business & tech, more than 20 in the arts, and an entire lifetime in a state of perpetual judgment (highly recommended). He is the author of the blogs This Is Your Brain on Dating and Love Gone Cray and can be found pontificating on Thought Catalog, Notable.ca, The Toronto Standard, Offline Magazine, Gasm.org and Huffington Post.
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This is a major bonus to those of us that love movies and hate to look different places for the information that we need about them. I have been waiting for a solution like this.
Happy to solve your issue Julie. Would be awesome if you could tell us what is missing in the app for your usage.
Other than the torrents, this seems to be a great all-in-one option. Torrents might be the one thing that turn people away from it.
Yeah, the torrents might be a reason for this type of things to get shutdown. The way the FBI is about those, I don’t know what you would even want to associate with them.
Hey! I am Cyril, one of the founder of AlertFilm. First of all thanks for your article, it’s well summarized and full of interesting comments for us!
No worries about Torrents guys, it has been removed from the app ????.
You are right on several points, it’s the type of thing that could lead to a shutdown and could turn people away. However it’s also the only thing that some people are looking for… Anyway, we made our decision.
It could be really useful for us, if you could tell us what you expect next for the app, which movie app you still use and why it’s not fulfilled by AlertFilm.
Last but not least: you can register to the beta version if you’d like to have pre access to new features and help us to co create the app.
According to the name, we are planning a full rebranding 😉
http://get.alertfilm.com/beta
Very nice! Right now I am using IFTTT.com and a bunch of feeds to get the information that I want. I would be very happy to have it all in one place within an app.
Do you mean that you’d like to have IFTTT integrated with AlertFilm or just move away from IFTTT for movies and TV shows ?